


IMMORTAL

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Visions, M/M, The Dark Side of the Force, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:00:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22797445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: There must always be a Darth Traya. As Kylo meditates, he sees ahaunting facein his visions of the dark side.
Relationships: Finn/Kylo Ren
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	IMMORTAL

**Author's Note:**

> if the sequel trilogy can make up whatever the fuck they want about the force then so can we. and I say that force ghost kreia can be finn's dream teacher. I had a lot of ideas for this AU but committing to bigger projects is hard for me so this is the most I can squeeze out of my motivation. enjoy
> 
> warnings for: body horror/gore imagery, & animal death in the first paragraph

A large opaque slug crawls across a branch, towards the twitching shrike impaled on its thorns. Death comes slowly as the slug drags itself over the bird, swallowing it the way the beetles in its white-feathered belly met their fate. Its hollow bones make a gentle _snap_ like mesquite over a fire.

Under Dantooine skies, Finn stands in the lavender grass, feeling the wind on his face and the sun on his shoulders. The savannah whispers around him. An older woman, silver hair braided with gold, sits in the shade of the tree. At first he believes she might be dead, but he senses her beckoning him.

He kneels before her, and her lips make a firm line as her words echo in his head.

_You want to know who you are, what you are capable of. Don't you? You feel that old song cradled deep within you, between your ribs like a hunter’s knife. It hurts to become. It touches you, everywhere you go._

When he opens his mouth, nothing comes out. He tries to reach out to her, but his arms won't move.

_There is no truth to the Force. But there is truth in you, and this is why I have chosen you._

He strains to break the surface of the weight holding him down. He grimaces, focusing his efforts, drawing in breath as if drowning. After a moment he finds the breach and pushes against it.

His quivering hand raises in the air. The tree cracks in half, and the ground reverberates with his power.

_Only you._

“I’m afraid.”

_You want to run, but even stronger than that, you want to understand. I’ve seen it before, and I see it now in your eyes._

Finn squeezes them shut. “I don’t even know who you are.”

_I am what you must grow beyond. Learn from me, my mistakes, and use that knowledge to become greater than I. That is all I ask of you, and that is all I desire. But if it brings you comfort - my name was Kreia. And what is your name?_

“I... I’m nobody. A number.”

_You have no past to burden you. You are an outsider, and for that, the Force cannot impose its will on you. If you are nobody to the quarreling fools of this galaxy, then you are on the true path._

“What do I need to do?”

/ / /

The stars are gone, and time loses control. Everywhere it is dark except for the whiteness of their eyes and teeth. The Force echoes around them, cold and shining like a stone at the bottom of a lake. Deep under the water, the knights follow their master to the end.

The ocean rises and falls. Empires are erected in a single shuddering moment and in ruins the next. Gods are worshipped with one breath and then bygone. Kylo prostrates at the ancient temple of his father, and death gnaws their bones into dust.

The dark side ripples under his eyelids like cephalopods from the sunless depths of the seas, and his hair weighs heavy as knots of kelp on his scalp. His knights encircle him; he has never been alive and always been here. His neck makes a harsh sound like a branch snapping underfoot, and he unravels, ribbons of sinuous flesh floating like smoke into their lungs.

It took him ages to perfect the art of the trance, but even now, it drowns his senses like his first orgasm, white-hot and absolute. He is an overflowing cup, the second chalice of minor arcana.

_I made a choice. There must always be one that holds the knowledge of betrayal._

From the dirge comes a voice that is both known and unknown. Every vein throbs with a name under his skin, and fingers bury themselves in his heart, anchoring him. It is so beautiful.

He sees a ship in the desert. He sees shards of light across the sand. He sees a man in the dunes, shedding his past.

_Who has been betrayed in their heart, and will betray in turn. Because it was the right thing to do._

Kylo comes back to his body in a clap of thunder. Sweat collects on his forehead and soaks through his thin cotton shirt.

The fluorescence in the training room pierces his bloodshot eyes, and he waves a hand to dim them. The incense burners hanging from the ceiling flicker out as well, and the jasmine smell lingers like a distant song from Alderaan, floating and forgotten.

One of his knights touches his shoulder, and Kylo clutches her hand. The leather of his gloves is cold as the durasteel walls, not like the Force in the way it siphons the warmth from life. He should revel in it. Instead, he finds himself thinking of those voices, desiring their sweet tempest. And that handsome man in the desert, surrounded by light.

Kylo ignites his saber, and he tries to forget.

/ / /

FN-2187 wakes in his bunk, shaking with fever. A bead of sweat rolls down the bridge of his nose. His fellow cadets snore beside him in the small white room they exist in together like nomads in a cave, wearing animal skins and rubbing flint together over a pile of sticks. They share everything they are allowed by the First Order - as in, four walls and a ceiling.

_Come to me. Who are you?_

His throat feels raw, as if he's been screaming. Under the rustle of sleepless bodies and soft breath, he can hear the ship humming through space. And below that - lips smacking, feet moving, fingers crossing. People are talking somewhere, whiskey is pouring over ice, and war is carrying on.

_Please, I beg of you._

Out in the dark, he can hear sobbing. 

He is not alone.

/ / /

It happens again, on another planet. In the month of storms, they disappear into red rune-carved canyons sprawling under a twin sunset, and in the hazy distance, the bone-white shale of the Sith fortress looms like an open mouth.

For centuries it hungered, and it will finally be satiated. Teeth and tongue gleam in the probing heat, speaking obscure knowledge in charcoal-smeared caves. Monsoons erase the rest of history, and only the dark side remains. It is a desert unlike Kylo's first vision; it is a war-torn memory of hate and misery.

The hot stench of ozone fills his nose and throat like a drug, and he collapses on the third day, sunburned limbs folding like origami. At the edge of his vision - movement. The fortress awakens.

"Come to me," Kylo calls out. "Who are you? What power do you have over me?"

A shadow of a ghost, a silhouette inside a dream: warm eyes, short locs, full mouth. His potential reverberates in the Force, far more than Kylo and his knights have ever come close to. It almost hurts to witness.

And then it does, truly, as a low pressure builds at the base of his spine. It shoots upward and Kylo thrashes like wounded prey.

Tears pricking his eyes, he gasps, "Who, who did this?"

The gossamer voice threads together in his skull. _There is only you._

"Who are you? What are you?"

_Only you._

"Teach me. Please, I beg of you. Let me know you."

He is not granted a revelation. Sand covers the fortress like burial dirt. He kneels in the stone tomb of Sith lords who loved nothing, paled by the dusk, and he weeps like a child. 

/ / /

_This is a new beginning. You are the unexpected variable, and you will change everything. I ask you to believe in yourself the way I do._

His mentor Kreia is beside him as he wanders into the desert, where the great hand of the First Order cannot reach him. Waves of heat wash over the alkali-white dunes, and the sun bears down on him like an animal, just as starved and exhausted as he is. He tries not to panic, clinging to Kreia's voice.

With every step he takes, one after another, the balance in the universe shifts like the sand underfoot. He focuses on his breathing and wipes the sweat from his forehead.

_It is such a quiet thing, to fall... and the difference between a fall and a sacrifice is sometimes difficult._

/ / /

They walk silently among the unbent trees, thin and white with sharp red leaves. Light slants through the branches onto their tunics and helmets. Small beasts watch them through the foliage, vultures fattened by the blood of Jedi. The smell of plasma from Kylo's lightsaber makes their bellies ache. Beaks and claws snap at the air, but they dare not approach.

In this graveyard, the knights train in the bone-fed snow. Kylo tests his men as his master does to him, wresting the secrets out from the inner dens where they burrow like rabbits in the brutal winter. His wind blows through their fur and he would know all there is, except for one that hides within him.

As they meditate, sore and bracing themselves from the cold, Kylo seeks out the voice. He pushes his mind to the furthest regions of the galaxy he can comprehend, until it comes to him, slow and deep like a slit throat.

"What have they taken from you?" Kylo whispers, broken. "Every night, I dream of you. I would give you the stars, each and every one in the sky. Tell me what you need. I'll do it. Just to see you."

He opens his eyes, and he sees what has always been alongside him.

/ / /

"Traitor," Kylo hisses through his teeth. "You were supposed to destroy the Jedi, not join them!"

"I wasn't supposed to do anything," Finn says. The blue lightsaber weighs nothing in his grip, attuned to him like a third arm. "I chose this, as you chose to become a monster. You want someone to blame? There is only you."

Kylo's eyes widen. "You heard the voice, too."

"She taught me more than you ever could."

"She corrupted you," he snarls. "Your power - she wants it for herself. She's dead. She's not real. She'll use you for her own purposes, to make herself real again."

"And what would you have me do? I don’t belong to anyone, especially not to you. I control myself. I’ll decide what to believe and who to trust.”

"We could bring the galaxy to its knees together. Forget the Republic. Forget the First Order. I want you beside me."

Kylo spits blood into the Starkiller snow. The cauterized hole in his abdomen reeks of plasma and burnt flesh. Finn deactivates his lightsaber, and Kylo slumps onto him, breathing heavily and coughing.

"Do you know what I want, Kylo? I want to know who I would have been if the First Order hadn't taken me as a child. I want to know the planet I was born on, the name I would have been given. I want to know the life I would have lived."

"But look at you now. Look at what you've accomplished without any of that."

"And look at what you've done with everything I didn't have."

"I was manipulated, just like you."

"You weren't -"

Kylo's mouth crushes his in a desperate kiss. Finn holds still, eyes open. When Kylo pulls away, panting, Finn tastes blood.

"You and I have similar souls," Kylo pleads. "Don't let me die here. I could give you so much."

"You couldn't even save yourself. What could you do for me?"

"Everything, anything. Please."

"Your master would strike you down."

"I don't care!"

_Apathy is death._

Finn puts his lips to Kylo's ear. "And I don't care about you."

He turns his back, and Kylo’s screams echo through the trees as he walks away.

_You have done well. But there is much left to -_

He crushes the bond between him and Kreia like autumn leaves in a clenched fist. He feels her wither away, back to the tree on Dantooine where he found her. 

And when he is truly alone, he smiles.


End file.
